(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .



What of Old Glory when America is Upside Down [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-02-26

The flag. Thirteen stripes. Thirteen colonies. Of course, we forget what colonizing does to the colonizer, let alone the victims. So many parts of our history need to be reclaimed to make us whole and true. 1619 helped, but then Trump threw 1776 into our face. 1776, both noble and a lie. The flag. White and red. Maybe I learned this, but forgot it a long time ago. Red symbolizes hardiness and valor. Maybe earlier than now. White represents purity and innocence. Hardly, given our birth in the blood of genocide and the lashes of slavery. Fifty stars. Easy. Fifty states. Red, white, and blue? I also forgot blue. It has been called the “Union,” uniting the 50 stars. It is said to mean vigilance, perseverance, and justice—and we have never needed blue more than today.

If you think I am down on our flag and our country, hardly. I love both despite their flaws. How many times have I stood and said the Pledge of Allegiance and wept for all the good of America, her people, and that flag—glad that no one could see me because they were all facing forward? Stupid, perhaps in some small measure. But there is so much more there. All the soldiers, men and women—Hegseth—who fought, bled, and died for that flag. DIED—many in righteous causes, there they are forever memorialized, those soldiers at Iwo Jima, one of the bloodiest battles in World War II, on February 23, 1945, raising the flag, and too many in unrighteous causes like Vietnam. Hegseth will likely dishonor our flag in endless ways, including allowing displays in the U.S. military of the Confederate flag (lowercase intentional). This lost cause has stoked racism, White Supremacy, and Jim Crow, old and new, since the Civil War. There it is in Old Glory—all the good and the bad of us—more good than bad, I think, but at this moment, will there be enough good given the ascendancy of a truly dangerous president?

You can’t love America, and you can’t love her flag if you fomented an insurrection to hold onto office. Despite legalities and parsing of words, Trump is a traitor and will be again. As are now most of the Republicans in Congress—all of them who put a pin of the American Flag on their lapel daily—but know neither its meaning nor measure. With each day of this presidency, they betray America the more.

You can’t love America, and you can’t love her flag if you fomented an insurrection to hold onto office. Despite the legalities and parsing of words, Trump is a traitor and will be again. As are now most of the Republicans in Congress—all of them who put a pin of the American flag on their lapel daily—but know neither its meaning nor measure. With each day of this presidency, they betray America more.

Trump can’t love America and betray Ukraine and her fight for freedom and democracy against Putin, the one who started the war by invading Ukraine. That Trump loves Putin is beyond all understanding, but his love of this dictator betrays everything America stands for.

The U.S. Flag Code (4 U.S.C. § 8(a)) states that the flag should never be displayed upside down except as a signal of dire distress in instances of “extreme danger to life or property.” Normally, it is not intended as a symbol of protest or political expression. Normally! In January 2021, the nation received a waiver regarding protest from the Supreme Court; well, not the Supreme Court but Justice Samuel Alito. Okay, it wasn’t him; it was from his wife Martha-Ann Alito, who clearly is the boss, when she displayed the upside-down American flag at their home in Alexandria, Virginia.

But what do you do when America is in extreme danger, as it is now? In every protest against the Trumpists—who are as dangerous as the Orbánists and Putinists—we should fly the American flag upside down, a flag flown by America’s true patriots. It should also be used upside down as a symbol in posters announcing protests.

The American flag, a symbol of pride, valor, and sacrifice, is weighed down by the complexities of history and current events. It carries with it both the noble and the unjust, a reminder of both our ideals and our failures. Because America faces threats from within, ironically by the person who people elected as President, a man who seeks to undermine our democratic principles, the flag must mobilize us by using it as a symbol of distress. Flying it upside down is not a disrespect to the country but an urgent call to action, a signal that we are in a time of great danger. It is time to reclaim the flag, honor its true meaning, and fight for the America it should be—one of justice, equality, and freedom for all.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/2/26/2306368/-What-of-Old-Glory-when-America-is-Upside-Down?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/

You are viewing proxied material from magical.fish. The copyright of proxied material belongs to its original authors. Any comments or complaints in relation to proxied material should be directed to the original authors of the content concerned. Please see the disclaimer for more details.